When life is not what we expect, we can trust God that it can turn out BETTER than what we expect.
Here’s a true story that illustrates that. I heard it on Family Life today.
Dennis Rainey: Walt, you know a very famous person who has had a great impact on a lot of people’s lives who started a honeymoon, what, 60 years ago? Maybe closer to 70 now and has a great story of responding in faith.
Walt: I heard him give it publicly. He told of getting married. They were very, very poor. They decided to honeymoon at a resort on a lake, I believe, that was kind of one of these all-inclusive things even back then, but they sent their money off for that, and then they bought a bus ticket to the resort, one way to the resort and then for a week later, one way home.
So after the ceremony, they changed clothes, got their bags, went to the bus station, were driven to the bus station and went out to this resort. The bus dropped them off, a little country road in the middle of nowhere. They walked about a quarter mile up to the resort, and when they got there, it was out of business. It was closed.
This was in the evening, there’s no cell phones 60 years ago, there were no pay phones, there was no nothing. The man, realizing this was a surprise, it’s not what we expected, but God was not surprised. They prayed briefly, and they walked back down the driveway, looked up one way, there was nothing as far as the eye could see.
And looked the other way, and down – a ways down the road was a small filling station with one pump – and old country store. They walked down to it, and the lady that owned it was a widow. She was closing up, and they told her of their predicament, and she said, “Well, I’ve got a room upstairs, if you’d like to stay there you can, and then we’ll work on the rest of it starting tomorrow.”
And that’s where they spent their honeymoon. As they went to bed that night, this man prayed with his wife – because she’s devastated, crying, upset. This is not a surprise to God. He is in charge. And they had their honeymoon night there. The next morning the lady came in early, made some coffee, some oatmeal, they were having breakfast and talking, and it turns out this man was a worship leader, and she said, “Well, you know, we have a problem. At our church we’re having a revival, and our worship leader, the music leader, is ill, and would you be interested, until we can sort this out, helping out with the revival?
A thought occurred in his mind – is this what the Lord’s up to? Is this what He’s up to? So he went to that church, met with the revivalist, ended up being hired for that week, actually got paid for that week, and the end of the story, to make a long story short is that was Cliff Barrows on his honeymoon, and that was the first time he met Billy Graham. And thus was born a relationship out of what many couples may have seen as a disaster that showed God’s footprints all over the fact that His design for the honeymoon is a foundation stone for a lifelong marriage that glorifies Him.
(And you know Cliff Barrows stayed with Billy Graham ever since that day in 1949. He has been the music and program director for the Billy Graham Crusades)